Do Air Purifiers Work? Does it Really Help?

With more people starting to be concerned with rising pollution levels, it makes sense that the air purifier market is booming.

Everyone wants clean and healthy air, especially since a majority of us spend 90% or more of our time indoors.

But, do air purifiers work? Can they really strip the air of harmful pollutants?

We’ll answer those types of questions for you as well as explain why and how they work to clean your home’s air.

What is an Air Purifier and How it Works

An air purifier is a device that comes in several sizes and styles. You can either get one that comes with a fan and a filter system, or you can get one that is filterless.

Different types of air purifiers are designed to help with different indoor air pollution problems like dust, pet dander, allergies, and odors. This is why it’s important to know what issues you want your air purifier to help with before you buy one.

One of the most popular types of air purifiers is a HEPA air purifier. This air purifier comes with a series of dense internal filters. When you switch it on, it starts cycling your home’s indoor air through it by use of a fan. As it sucks the air in, it passes it through the filters. The filters catch and screen out airborne contaminants and particles.

If the air purifier uses a True HEPA filter, it can screen out 99.97 percent of pollutants down to 0.3 microns in size. You can find the top air purifiers here that are of this caliber.

HEPA-style air purifiers are great for helping to get rid of allergens like dust, pollen, and pet dander because these contaminants are usually much smaller. You need the denser HEPA filter to catch them because they’ll slip through traditional filters.

A second popular air purifier is called an ionic air purifier. These are filterless air purifiers that use either charged plates or ions to help get rid of larger contaminants.

One type of ionizer releases negative ions into the air, and these negative ions attach to the pollutants and weigh them down, so they sink to the ground. The other ionizer charges the contaminants as they pass by the first plate, and the contaminants are drawn to the second plate; like a magnet.

Ionizers are good to use for odors like smoke because they’re very efficient at cleaning the air and leaving it smelling fresh. They’re also great for microscopic particles and some products can remove contaminants down to 0.1 microns in size.

Does an Air Purifier Really Help?

As long as you do your research and pick the air purifier that targets the contaminants you want to get rid of, then yes an air purifier does help. What is the best air purifier on the market? That all depends on you and your needs.

You also want to look at the square foot capabilities because every air purifier has a maximum reach and can only clean the air in the room you have it running in. This means that you may want to buy more than one air purifier and have them running at the same time in the various rooms you use the most. To learn more take a look at our post on how do I choose an air purifier?

So, do air purifiers really work? Now you know that the answer is yes.

Our Mission

Buying an air purifier can be confusing. That's why we're here to help.

Our site is packed with free guides to help you find the best air purifier for your home and discover everything you need to know about this powerful air cleaning technology. Our goal is to educate you so well that you make the best decision possible for your needs. You can learn more about us here.